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Christian Reiki
by Judith White

Every Reiki healer brings her own beliefs with her to the Reiki table, and in my case those beliefs are Christian and Biblical. There is no contradictionin this because Reiki is not a religion, and there is nothing in pure Reiki which conflicts with the truths taught in scripture. Usui Reiki advocates only a simple set of principles for moral behavior which are compatible with any spiritual belief.

Reiki energy comes from God as an expression of His unconditional love. My Christian clients have reported intense experiences of the Holy Spirit revealing God's presence and Love during their Reiki sessions.

When I give Reiki, I pray for the person who is receiving it. I do not presume to tell God what you need, because He sees you so much more completely than I can and He knows exactly where your true needs are.
Whatever your beliefs, you can know that I am praying for your highest good. Whatever your circumstances, Reiki can do no harm.

Reiki is a gift and a blessing from God. If you are unsure of this, I hope your questions are answered below.

Should Christians Practice Reiki?
First let me say that the only reliable authority on this subject is the Holy Spirit. A Christian has an obligation to settle this question through prayer. I came to my own sense of peace about Reiki over a four-and-a-half-year period during which I took time off from Reiki and gave scripture and the Lord a chance to get through whenever I had questions about what I was learning. If you genuinely want to please the Lord, He can certainly reach your mind and your heart with the truth.

Reiki’s Critics
So far, the critics I have read fall into three categories. One is people who don’t believe ki and the human energy system exist at all. Another is people who have misunderstood Reiki before and now reject it. A third is people who do not see how Reiki fits with scripture.

The first group could learn more if they wished by reading some recent science and learning more about healing energy. The second group does real harm to Reiki’s reputation by their inability to separate their individual experiences from simple Reiki. For example, one person’s experience was strongly colored by associating Reiki with massage and his own lust for the woman who introduced him to Reiki.

The third group is right in saying Reiki is never mentioned in the Bible per se, but then neither are penicillin and many things we use today. Healing is listed as a spiritual gift (I Cor. 12:9), and Jesus tells us that anyone who has faith in Him can have the power to heal like He did (John 14:12), so the main issue is whether Reiki healing comes from God and can be used by God. We can tell that Reiki does come from God because it can only help, heal and comfort; it can only do good and not harm. All good gifts come from God (James 1:17).

The Christian Research Institute, a conservative Christian watchdog group, has written that Reiki cannot be good because it is associated with world views that are in opposition to Christianity and practices that are forbidden in scripture, specifically channeling which I discuss below. The only teaching beyond the how-to’s which is part of the original Usui Reiki are these Reiki Principles: Just for today, I will feel gratitude. Just for today, I will let go of anger. Just for today, I will let go of worry. Just for today, I will do my work honestly. Just for today, I will be kind to my neighbor and every living thing. To me, this sounds more like a healthy AA meeting than a dangerous philosophy. There is nothing here to mislead or undermine any spiritual convictions. If people with world views other than Christian ones practice Reiki, that does not make it evil.

One question I wrestled with repeatedly was why, if Reiki is a gift from God, anyone can practice it regardless of their beliefs. Each time I came to the same conclusions. God is generous with many gifts, such as intelligence, artistic ability, strength, and beauty, regardless of beliefs. We all have the ability to love, to communicate, and to care for others. Since Reiki is available to anyone, it is clearly a general ability to do good for one another that God built into His creation. The section on ki explains this. It is impossible to do harm with Reiki, but what any individual teaches in addition to simple Reiki is something that individual will be held accountable for. We are all called to walk in obedience to God's Word and His will.

"No good tree bears bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit. Each tree is recognized by its own fruit" (Luke 6:43-44).

Does Ki (or Chi or Prana) Exist?
This question can lead to the intersection of ancient spirituality with modern physics. (If you enjoy learning, find physics books that are written for your level of knowledge. You may be pleased to see how science is tending in a philosophical and spiritual direction, unlike the anti-spiritual direction of the 19th and early 20th centuries.) Physics has clearly proven that the entire universe is composed of energy and physical matter is a concentration of energy. Your own energy field can be perceived by scientific instruments.
(Editors Note: to read a scientific description of Reiki and energy medicine please download this file Science and the Human Energy Field.)

As people who believe that "all things were created by Christ and for Christ and in him all things hold together" (Col. 1:16-17), it's not hard to believe in a universal life force (ki, chi, prana) that comes from God and animates all living things. This is the energy which science is learning to perceive. This is the energy with which Reiki heals.

Reiki practitioners treat the human energy system
Many people who do not have Reiki can feel the human energy field and some can also see it. This is easy to learn and does not require any spiritual activity of any sort. Since this field does exist and has always existed, it only makes sense that people have perceived it in all centuries and cultures, especially those that have not been raised to believe that nothing exists besides what we can sense with our five senses. Except for our faith in an unseen God, Christians are as affected by the science-oriented culture we are raised in as everyone else.

Does Reiki Involve Channeling?
I am a Usui Reiki Master and a Karuna Reiki® Master, and I believe I am a gifted healer and teacher of Reiki . . . but I do not channel any spirit guides or angels or ascended Reiki masters. My only guide is the Lord Jesus Christ through the working of the Holy Spirit. However, I am only an authority on my own experience, and I cannot speak with certainty on what happens with non-Christians. By most people’s definition of the word "channel" Christians channel the Holy Spirit and the prophets all channeled God. We don’t use the word because of its connotations of spiritism and mediumship, but the word itself doesn’t denote evil. In the same way, our receiving guidance from God could be called a psychic experience because it comes through supernatural means. When we try to sort through these issues, it’s good to separate the actual meaning of a word from some of the ways it is used in other contexts.

That being said, it is still true that Reiki practitioners are encouraged to ask for spiritual guides to guide our Reiki sessions so that we are able to intuit where a client needs to receive Reiki. I was already a Christian when I began to use Reiki, so I already knew that my spiritual guide is the Holy Spirit and believed it would be wrong to ask about anyone else. Besides, the energy which comes from God and which we can feel with our hands is really enough to tell us where Reiki is needed without asking for additional guidance.

It seems possible that God does send angels to help us practice Reiki -- in fact, I am quite sure I have experienced their help -- but here again I have felt it is wrong to ask to know more about them. All that a true angel desires is to glorify God, not to receive any attention itself. I simply pray that theLord will give my client what He knows they need and ask the Holy Spirit to guide me. How God’s will is accomplished through Reiki isn’t necessarily for me to know.

Many Christians' fear about spirit guides is that they are actually demons disguising themselves as the Buddha or angels or whomever. I think this is unlikely, due to my experience of the great good that Reiki does and how impossible it is to think of any way to misuse Reiki. I'm not sure evil beings would even be capable of healing. It seems more likely that people who don't have the Holy Spirit to enable them to recognize the work of the Lord can be deceived into believing the power of Reiki comes from some otherspiritual source. If all good gifts come from the Lord, then Reiki comes fromthe Lord, but Satan tries to steal His glory in the same way he does with anything that is created by God.

What about the Reiki symbols?
Reiki practitioners who achieve Level II and above use Japanese-looking symbols with Japanese names to focus different aspects of Reiki energy. The symbols have no meaning in themselves and the names are descriptive and harmless. The symbols represent different frequencies of healing energy which the practitioner receives through a laying-on of hands so that s/he can access that energy when it is needed. The symbols are neutral and the energy is good.

It may help to remember that no symbol, no matter how strong its associations, is good or evil in itself. The swastika and even the pentagram have been used in past centuries simply as decorative designs. Today people cannot use them without raising the idea of great evil, but that is because of the groups which have used the symbols, not because of any actual power in the symbols themselves. The same is true for a symbol of great good like the cross. It is just two lines, just a pattern without any power to do good in and of itself, yet it reminds us of the greatest love that was ever shown to humankind.

Why not just use prayer instead of Reiki?
We could just as well ask “Why not use prayer instead of medical care?” or instead of anything else we turn to for help with a problem. Hopefully, most Christians use prayer AND medicine (or whatever) and remember to thank God for the answer to their prayers. I use prayer AND Reiki, and I think it is much more obvious that God is doing the work with Reiki than with medicine. (I am not implying that Reiki should ever be a substitute for medical care, though it is true that it can heal people.) If a person objects to Reiki because
the practitioner or Reiki receive all the glory instead of the Lord, it is the practitioner who has the problem. In humility, any Reiki practitioner of any belief system should know that they are not the source of Reiki energy and that they cannot truly make Reiki do anything. Reiki comes from God and He determines how it will help the person who receives it in the same way He does when we pray for someone.

Personally, I have found that Reiki greatly benefits my prayer life in the peace that I have myself and in the confidence I have in the Lord to hear my prayers for others. Something about the fact that I cannot control Reiki and make it do what I want it to do for a person has deepened my ability to ‘let go and let God’. Less and less do I tell God what I think He should do and how He should do it. More and more I simply take a person or situation before Him in prayer and trust that He knows far better than I what is best.

If you would like to experience Reiki for yourself, please email me at areikihealer@reiki4healing.com or call me at Phone 610-626-6647 - to make an appointment or ask any questions you may have.


Judith White
Reiki Master
Karuna Reiki® Master

* This article was copied with permission from Judith's web site at http://areikihealer.tripod.com/christianreiki.html